Java source level problems during Export

I set my compliance levels, why doesn't it work?

How do I Compile against arbitrary JDKs?

java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError

PDE/UI performs the export by using PDE/Build to generate build scripts. PDE/Build does not know anything about the Java Builder settings in your workspace or on your project. Your plug-in's manifest.mf and build.properties files are the input to PDE/Build. See this page for specifics on controlling the compilation environment for your plug-in.

The properties specifying the locations of the JDKs to compile against are automatically set during export by PDE/UI based on your installed JREs: Preferences->Java->Installed JREs->Execution Environment.

So, to set your compilation environment:

Setup your installed JREs in your preferences.

Set your Bundle-RequiredExecutionEnvironment in your manifest.

or set jre.compilation.profile in your build.properties

or set javacSource, javacTarget in your build.properties

Including files in the root of my build

Files can be included in the root of your build by using a Feature. See this page for the root properties to set in your feature's build.properties file.

If you are doing a product build using productBuild.xml and a .product file instead of a normal feature driven build, then you must somehow include your feature containing the root files. There are two possibilities for doing this:

Have your .product file based on features, and include your root feature. If your root feature does not containg the bin.includes property, then it will not be included in the final build results, but the root files will be.

If your .product file is based on plug-ins, you need to get your feature to be included in the generated container feature that is driving the product build. The feature generator allows you to specify a list of additional features and plug-ins to be included. Use the featureList property to add your root feature. Note that in 3.2, the productBuild.xml script did not pass this property to the feature generator (bug 158761). You will need to add it to the productBuild.xml:

Fetching the .product file in a product build

When using the productBuild.xml and a .product file to build your product, the feature or plug-in that contains the .product file must exist on disk before the fetch phase of the build. This is because we need to generate the container feature first so that we know what we need to fetch.

You can fetch the feature/plug-in containing the .product file using a custom step earlier on in the build. Use customTargets.xml, in the postSetup target, call ${genericTargets}/fetchElement. Something like:

How do I build from SVN

Out of the box, PDE Build does not have the ability to fetch code from a subversion repository. Some discussion have started to make Subversive Fetch task part of the BaseBuilder. Subversive provides an SVN fetch task. The corresponding plugin can be downloaded from Subversive's website and some documentation can be found on dedicated wiki page.

Before that, Chris Vines from the community created a plug-in adding this support. It can be found at [1]. Any specific problem with this plug-in must be reported there too.

Setting up a workspace to test builds

Start a runtime workbench

File -> New -> Project

Name it "Builder"

Finish

File -> New -> Folder -> Builder/features

File -> New -> Folder -> Builder/plugins

Put your feature inside the Builder/features directory

From the PDE/Build plug-in in your install, copy allElements.xml, build.properties and customTargets.xml to the Builder project.

Edit Builder/build.properties

Set buildDirectory to be the file-system path of your workspace project. (e.g. d:/temp/workspace/Builder)

Set baseLocation to the file-system path of the target that you are building against (e.g. d:/R32/eclipse)

In your dev, create a new Eclipse Application

Set the application to be org.eclipse.ant.core.antRunner

Set the arguments to be -buildfile ${resource_loc:/org.eclipse.pde.build/scripts/build.xml} -Dbuilder=d:/temp/workspace/Builder -nosplash

When exporting a feature, or a product based on features you get an error like:

Unable to find plugin: org.eclipse.filesystem.win32.x86_1.1.0

or

Bundle org.eclipse.swt.gtk.linux.x86_0.0.0 failed to resolve.

This is caused by a missing ws/os/arch filter on the fragment's inclusion in the feature.xml. This can easily be set in the Plug-ins Tab of the feature editor by selecting the fragment on the left and specifying the Operating System, Window System and Architecture on the right. Or it can be set directly in the feature.xml :

The feature lists everything that needs to be present for the export to succeed. Platform specific fragments will not resolve, and hence not be available, on platforms that do not match their Eclipse-PlatformFilter. In order to let export know that it is ok that this fragment is not available on this platform, a similar platform filter is needed in the feature.xml.